In today’s Journal
* Philip K. Dick, Anyone?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Philip K. Dick, Anyone?
From an article in 1440 Daily Digest:
“Neuralink develops invisible, wireless brain implants designed to restore control and movement to people with limited mobility due to brain-related issues.
“The procedure involves the use of a proprietary robot surgically implanting a coin-sized transponder underneath the skull. The Food and Drug Administration authorized Neuralink to conduct human trials in May.
“The company also plans to offer the implant to healthy people to allow bodily integration with computers.”
So as I titled this post, Philip K. Dick, anyone?
This is today, folks, not in the future.
Story ideas abound in science fiction (pre-Neuralink it would have been science fantasy), political intrigue, crime thriller, and every other genre that is set in the present day or in the future.
Or in any time period, really. Advanced species or a time traveler could deliver this same tech to people living in the past.
A few questions…
How long will it be before the implant is required by government mandate at birth or in humans below a certain age? Or in the military?
In North Korea, say? Or in China? Or in the United States?
Of course, old guys like me don’t have to worry about being implanted. Or even being offered the implant. Or even having to witness the effects of implants. Or of mandated mass implants.
Maybe you won’t either. Or believe you won’t.
Can you imagine how easy it would be to control a population of citizens who are implanted in this way?
And do you “hasten” the demise of those who are deemed to old for the implant (or who refuse it) in order to cleanse society? And if so, how?
Or on a smaller scale, can you imagine how easy it would be to communicate with/control an assassin or team of assassins who are thusly implanted?
Are we as a society already succumbing to AI? I don’t mean by AI “taking” anything from us or levying control over us, but by us becoming machines ourselves?
‘What Ifs’ should be flying all over the place in your head. Grab one, hold on, and write it.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 380
Writing of TJ Blackwell: The Origin Story
Day 1…… 6139 words. To date…… 6139
Day 2…… 1781 words. To date…… 7920
Day 3…… 2692 words. To date…… 10612
Fiction for March…………………….…. 43378
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 207970
Fiction since October 1………………… 511026
Nonfiction for March…………………… 21970
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 121160
2024 consumable words……………… 329130
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 5
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 87
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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The most untold thing about all of this neuroimplants is that for an unknown reason it produces deadly infection in 3-5 year. Nobody knows, why does it happen, but the fact is all of this super powers will be payed by death.
Story about such an assassin will look more like Crank movie. Or old but gold Japanese anime series Gunslinger Girls about androids with copied memories from real girls.
Also (I even used it for a sci-fi story) there’s problem that there aren’t any stable protocol for connection between neurolink items.
For example, we have Assassin A and Assassin B. When Assassin A thinks about building X, his neurolink will capture it as A1B1C1D1 signal. But for Assassin B the same building will be E2F3G3H9 signal. How can Assassin A be sure that his message will be got right? For Assassin B all of this A1B1C1D1 would mean nothing.
And anyway, both signals can be captured and even killed using electromagnetic warfare. Today electromagnetic warfare.
In my story I used another experiment – a neural network was trained on brainwaves reacting on different images. Then it was asked to draw images by brainwave. So, this way it became possible to make video tapes of dreams. The next level was synchronising the dreams (like in Inception movie, but actually inspiration was VR.5 series I’ve seen on TV as kid). I didn’t know how would this could work so I’ve just mentioned that signals are synchronized by Kachalov’s effect of quantum entanglement (in honor of a friend of mine, medical scientist Vladislav Kachalov).
It was enough to write a short story about mysterious death in sleeping. And as you could guess, Ctulhu was one who did it!
Thanks, Rikki. That’s a very informative comment in that it gives other writers more to think about along these lines. But also, always remember you’re writing science fiction/fantasy. So two notes:
One, the science doesn’t have to be perfect or exact. It’s fiction.
And two, readers will notice only what the writer puts in the work. Most readers will not notice or question what the writer does NOT put in the work.
Thanks again for the great comment.
Talking about AI inspired story ideas, this one sounds even more creep: https://www.odditycentral.com/news/scientist-spends-10-months-in-prison-after-ai-system-wrongly-identifies-him-as-murderer.html
A scientist with was accused to be a serial killer because AI decided that he looks the same like one of suspects. The case is that he looked complete different from photo and had 100% alibi. No one knows actually why AI detected him.
A little reminiscent of “Minority Report.”